well bitd in jolly ol it was sometimes mortally illegal to be catholic and sometimes mortally illegal to be protestant and always mortally necessary to be one or the other depending it seems on who married whom or wanted to gtfo right so a lot of people did and brought their religions with them and the right of religion being the first of the rights guaranteed in the us constitution convinced a lot of people that religion was the shit happily a beneficent deity invested us all with true understanding so we get along fine now